“I understand that with the power of my platform comes a huge responsibility,” the model wrote, nodding to her Palestinian heritage. “I’m human and I make mistakes. But I also hold myself accountable for those mistakes,” she said, adding that she’d continue “bringing attention to violations of international law and human rights.”

The whipsawing discourse reflects the difficulty of working through complex issues publicly and in real time, especially under a crush of sometimes unreliable information, said Modi Wiczyk, co-founder and co-CEO of the production company Media Rights Capital (MRC).

“What all of the debate over the last 45 days speaks to is more than about antisemitism. I think it’s about the effects of propaganda on our community and the broader world,” Wiczyk said.

However, he said, “There are such things as hate speech. I think that’s different than free speech. I think that’s different than speech you disagree with.”

MRC shelved a Kanye West documentary more than a year ago after the rapper, also known as Ye, repeated conspiracy theories and antisemitic tropes, crossing a clear boundary, Wiczyk said. He said MRC is donating to “organizations on both sides of the aisle” and inviting experts to speak with staffers about the conflict.

Where the lines fall

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said the group “takes no position on talent being dismissed from movies or shows because of their views” but emphasized that “freedom of speech clearly isn’t the freedom to slander.”

“We will continue to look for opportunities to call people in and to help educate them when they cross the line from legitimate criticism into ugly antisemitism,” he said.

Saira Rao, an author and activist, said she was never informed or invited to weigh in on where the line falls. But she said she was told she’d crossed it in a Nov. 13 call from her literary agent saying she was losing representation from her theater agency, CAA, which declined to comment for this article.

Rao, who said she hasn’t learned what caused the decision, has made incendiary posts criticizing Israel on social media, including one calling Zionists “bloodthirsty” and “genocidal.” Like Yasmin, Rao said she thinks she was dropped because she has used the word “genocide” online.

The term has caused controversy within and outside Hollywood. The United Nations defines genocide as “a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.”

In October, an independent group of U.N. experts stopped short of using the word but condemned what it called the “collective punishment” of Gazans. “There is no justification for violence that indiscriminately targets innocent civilians, whether by Hamas or Israeli forces,” it said.

Israel has said it reserves the right to defend itself from Hamas, a militant group that rejects its existence. Israeli officials have denied genocide allegations and said they were gathering evidence of war crimes by Hamas.

Heated political crossfire is neither unprecedented in Hollywood nor unique to it. College campuses have also seen acrimonious debates about the war, and workplaces from law firms to the CIA have set or clarified guidelines around what public remarks they’ll tolerate from staffers.

“Hollywood has traditionally been involved in all sorts of political and social issues,” said Stephen Zunes, a professor of Middle Eastern and North African politics at the University of San Francisco. But he acknowledged “emotions are raw,” partly “because we are looking at two historically oppressed groups, Palestinian Arabs and Jews.”

“There’s an understandable reason that a lot of people will … look at things as a very black-and-white issue and not really understand the complexities of this long-running conflict,” he said.

Accusations of double standards have been made on both sides.

Allison Josephs, founder of Jew in the City, a nonprofit group focused on improving media representations of Orthodox Jews (a fraction of American Jews), said recent pro-Palestinian rhetoric has been “embedded” with antisemitism.

“If the standard has been that Roseanne Barr lost her show for being racist, and if many actors lost their jobs for sexual assault — and Hollywood is saying we have a standard of things that cross the line — then in a free market system, agents and studios can say what crosses the line,” she said. (Barr later apologized.)

Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the greater Los Angeles area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the punitive actions in Hollywood reflect a “double standard and selective enforcement.”

“These regulations tend to surface or be invoked predominantly when Israel becomes the subject of such commentary, often with the intention of suppressing valid critiques,” he said. “Rarely do we witness any uproar from these entities or the industry at large when an actor voices concerns about human rights abuses by countries like China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran or even our own country.”

There have been calls for a more forgiving climate, given Hollywood’s history of second chances.

Fischer, the producer, said, “I don’t agree that if someone who puts their foot in their mouth, says something that they regret saying, apologizes for it once they understand that what they said was wrong — that there shouldn’t be a chance to correct that.”

But Rao, at least, continues to stand by her sentiments.

“We have a moral duty to speak up,” she said. “A lot of us are doing that, and in response people are getting fired. Shame on those institutions for silencing people who are doing the right thing.”